who's scruffy looking?
by She's a Star
Summary: [30 Rock.] Five reasons Liz thinks that maybe Jack is interested. You know. Like that.


**Title:** who's scruffy looking?  
**Pairing:** Jack/Liz  
**Spoilers:** slight ones up to "The Fighting Irish"  
**Word Count:** 905  
**Summary:** Five reasons Liz thinks that maybe Jack is interested. You know. Like _that_.  
**Author's Note:** Oh, Liz Lemon. You just make me happy. This show is made of truly overwhelming amounts of awesome, and more people should watch it.

Also, if you haven't seen Kelly Wants Shoes or Text Message Break-Up, get out from under that rock, go to YouTube, and redeem yourself. (Although, okay, I didn't know about Text Message Break-Up 'till a few days ago. So I guess I can't talk.)

-

He's really stuck on that mentoring thing. It just seems … kinda weird.

-

She's ninety percent sure that he spends at least a few seconds of every conversation they have staring at her chest.

She's twenty-seven percent okay with this.

-

When he tries to convince her that Tracy and Jenna should fabricate an affair to increase the show's publicity ("a few … compromising photographs submitted to Us Weekly from an anonymous source, and bam! Ratings skyrocket.") and she says no, because she's not immoral and, oh yeah, _crazy_, he gets irritated, then fed up, then pissed off, and that's when he says it—

"Damn it, Bianca!"

He apologizes afterward, and offers to get her and "that lawyer boy" a week off and a private jet to the Bahamas, which she politely refuses. And she's okay with it, really. Because it's really easy to mix up 'Lemon' and 'Bianca,' on account of the fact that they sound so much alike and oh God, oh God. Jack has a thing for her.

Maybe.

She decides she should probably check to be sure.

"Do you think it's weird that Jack called me his ex-wife's name?" she asks Jenna that night in make-up.

Jenna's eyes widen. Between that and the bald cap she's sporting for the Britney skit, she looks sort of nuts. "In bed?"

"No, not in bed!" Liz snaps. "Just . . . in conversation."

"Wow, Liz," Jenna breathes. "Isn't she the one that he wanted to marry, boff, _and_ kill?"

"That's the one," Liz confirms a little grimly.

"Then it's official," Jenna announces, barely able to contain her excitement. "Jack Donaghy totally wants you."

Luckily, it's hard to fully believe someone who shaved her head and checked in and out of rehab like seven times in forty-eight hours. Otherwise, Liz would be dangerously tempted to listen to her. And she's not so sure it's smart to go there.

-

She's always the first person he alerts when he finds something new on YouTube. He's so excited about the "Kelly Wants Shoes" video that she can't bring herself to break it to him that that one's really old.

"Women and their shoes, right, Lemon?" he asks with a chuckle. Except then he glances down at her feet and amends, "Well. Some women."

"Jack," she says, and sighs, "For the last time, my shoes are not bicurious. I just—"

"No," he interjects, holding up a hand. "I know. Don't worry. You've convinced me of your heterosexuality."

"Um," she says. "Thank you?"

"Of course, Lemon," he responds sagely, and pats her on the shoulder. "Of course."

She doesn't really have time to wonder about what that might mean, because in like ten seconds he finds "Text Message Break-Up." It is fortunately impossible to think with that in the background.

-

Weird as the idea might be, there's just no denying that she and Jack are good bickerers. Like . . . possibly Han Solo and Princess Leia good. It always sort of lingers in the back of her mind whenever they're caught in some suspiciously witty argument, and okay, fine, maybe she's wondered once or twice what would happen if she called him a scruffy-looking nerf-herder. Just idly, though. It's not like she _fantasizes_ about it or anything. Because that would just be … sad. –der. Than she is already.

Except then one day they're in the middle of fighting over him wanting her to fire like twenty percent of her staff just _because_, and all of a sudden it happens. She storms into the elevator and he follows her and she turns around and there he is, pointing at her and everything, and—

"You could use a good—"

The whole world turns kind of surreal and swishy and she accidentally finishes, sort of breathless, "Kiss?"

"I was going to say facial," he says, frowning slightly.

The elevator lets out a cheerful ding as the doors pull closed.

"Oh." She looks down at her (non-bicurious) shoes. "Never mind, then."

"Why?" When she looks up again, it's to discover that he's smiling at her in that unmistakably smug kind of devious completely unattractive way he has. "Would you like a good kiss, Lemon?"

She scoffs. "What? No. Gross."

"Yep," he agrees after seeming to contemplate it for a moment. "Gross."

Except then he takes a few steps closer and stares at her mouth for at least five seconds, and does that _thing_ – that pre-kiss thing, with his eyes going from her mouth to her eyes and back a bunch of times, and even if she _did_ know flower-slash-lawyer guy's name, she would probably be forgetting it right about now.

"Hmm," he concludes thoughtfully, then shrugs and takes a few steps back and stands next to her, like they're just two polite people in an elevator or something stupid like that.

She goes back to staring at her (officially very very straight, just in case she needed a reminder) shoes.

"Goodbye, Lemon," he says, all annoyingly civil, when the elevator doors open again.

Jerk.

"I happen to like nice men!" she calls after him.

He doesn't turn around, but waves jauntily as he makes his way down the hall.

She realizes that it probably would have been a lot smarter to bust out 'I'd just as soon kiss a Wookiee.'

"Damn it," she mumbles.


End file.
